


Return to Sender

by unsettled



Category: Body of Lies (2008)
Genre: H/C bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not the first time he has seen Ferris in a hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return to Sender

**Author's Note:**

> very last minute fill for the May h/c mini challenge of writing in a small fandom. You'd think this would be no challenge for me, considering how tiny most of my fandoms are, but I kept getting fantastic ideas for all the slightly too large ones. *facepalm* But oh, dear Body of Lies, how I have missed you!   
> Also when checking the number of fics to be sure … Idk whether it's really sad or really awesome that out of the whole 50 fics on Ao3, 32 are mine. >.>

Ferris' face is so battered, so dark with bruises that it is near unrecognizable, but he knows it all the same, all too well. 

This is not the first time he has seen Ferris in a hospital; not the first time, not the first time from an assignment, not even the first time from Hani's orders. So he does not blame himself, holds himself to no responsibility for the dark, swollen mess that is Ferris' face, for the bones, broken too soon after the last time, for the disturbing stillness of his shallow breaths. He doesn't blame anyone, really, except perhaps Ferris himself, a little, for being so _careless_. 

Which is why Ferris had best wake up soon, so Hani can be coldly, cuttingly polite to him, a more effective expression of anger than any incensed yelling. 

It is not the first time, but it is the first time since they've begun this … this thing, between them, this convoluted thing that had startled the both of them, neither quite prepared for the other's reaction, and he has to wonder, with these results before him – with these reactions stirring in him – if it was a mistake. If he was letting himself get too close, too casual about the lines that separate Agent Ferris from - 

How close can he get, before his judgment sours, before he is no longer the best judge for how ready Ferris is for the field, for how sound a plan is, for how high a risk he is willing to take with his men? For how high a risk he is willing to take to get them back? For how unwilling he is to consider _this_ asset disposable, when Ferris should rank no differently than any other agent under his command? 

Ferris' trust should feel no different, no heavier, than any other agent's, yet it does. It tangles up with their history, with the ways Hani has broken Ferris' trust, time and time again – and maybe Ferris deserved it, maybe it was only repayment for trust broken in kind, maybe Ferris shouldn't have been so blindly trusting in the first place – but if he wasn't, he wouldn't be Ferris at all. He has too many reasons not to trust Hani, and still he does, and still, Hani finds it some unfathomable gift, tied round his neck. 

The way Ferris was returned to him is a message in itself – dumped, alive but damaged, in the heart of Hani's territory. It is a taunt: we know who your men are, it says, and this is what will do to them. Not disappear them, so that you never are quite sure what befell them, but give them back to you, useless, broken, with the full knowledge that we know you, now. And the challenge, in the continued beat of Ferris' heart: you can't stop us. Let him recover, let him tell you all that he discovered – it won't be enough to bring us down, they are saying, mockingly branded into the scarring marks across the backs of Ferris' hands. 

We don't have to kill him to neutralize you, it says, and it is a terrible thing that Hani is grateful for this. 

The problem is, while they are aware Ferris is Hani's, and thus it will enrage him, to have one of his agents used so, they do not realize the deeper truth: he is _Hani's_. This is not just some GID agent that they have despoiled. This is Hani's agent, Hani's man, Hani's - 

He is too close, and he knows this, in the moments that he stands and watches the slow rise and fall of Roger's chest. Too close to set this aside as something that happens, sometimes, to agents who are not careful enough, to agents that take the risks he demands of them. Too close to make joking comments about who visits the hospital first. Too close for his retaliation not to be more than it should be. 

He cannot keep Roger safe. It is no comfort to know this; Roger can take care of himself, and any attempt to keep him safe, to protect him by chaining him to a desk, by keeping an extra eye on him while undercover, by steering him away from the riskiest of operations – any attempt will simply destroy him. He cannot protect Roger, and now, he can hardly protect himself. 

But he can take his revenge for every bit of damage that he cannot prevent, he can burn these men who dared to taunt Hani Salaam, who dared touch things that are his, down to bare, salted ground. 

And that, that is some comfort.


End file.
